Editor’s Blog: Leslie Hopes to Achieve Better Living Through Shareware

The farther away I get from college, the more I realize how cool it was to be in an environment that was solely focused on the gathering and applying of knowledge. (And, um, beer.) Even though I don't have the time (or the inclination, while we're being honest) to get a second degree, I've recently realized that there are a lot of ways I can smarten up without spending tons of time or lots of money. Starting with these five free and low-cost Mac apps.

If you have any fave shareware or freeware apps like these, let me know in the comments.

1. World of Where ($15.95)Geography whizzes need not apply. But if you are, like most Americans, light on your knowledge of world geography, World of Where can help you learn the lay of the planet in no time. Spend 20 minutes a day in World of Where and you'll soon know the difference between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, or the capital of Malta.

I started my geography lesson with the Middle East. So that's where Qatar is...

Comments

Clint Bradford

March 22, 2007 at 4:39pm

MaxMenus and Overflow have simplified and better-organized my MacBookPro, Leslie.

MaxMenus is a Preference Pane program (http://www.proteron.com) that places small, colored buttons in each corner of your display. What occurs with each of the four when clicked is very customizable - but I have stuck with the deafults: TopLeft = List of Applications; Top Right = Active Programs; Bottom Left = Recent Documents; and Lower Right = System Preferences. There are scores of options.

My Dock was getting full and sometimes confusing. Overflow (http://www.stuntsoftware.com) is, for me, one of the "cleanest" menu grouping utilities. It resides as an app in your Dock, but click on it, and you are able to customize groups of apps, docks, and/or folders to your liking. For example, my Overflow menus are "Internet," "Imaging," "Utilities," and "Recreation." Each of those sub-menus just happens to contain 12 choices each - but that number is, of course, customizable for each menu.

I haven't even scratched the depth of options for these two enhancements.

I'll definitely check those out. Both seem very useful! (And I'm freakishly obsessed with keeping an uncluttered dock and desktop, so they're both right up my alley.) You might also stay on the lookout for an upcoming how-to screencast that Rik did where he explains how to add a My Apps folder to the dock so you can de-clutter it. Thanks! ~Leslie